The conversation has been known to continue:<p>SG: "You should join our company as chief growth hacker, since it's a great fit for your skills and experience. You'll work 100 hour weeks. We're thinking $60k a year and 0.5% sounds fair. Come change the way the people $VERB."<p>PIH: "Where do you get to the part of the sales pitch where I get something out of this deal?"<p>SG: "Did we mention the free soda?"<p>(I'm joking... but not by much.)
This post makes me happy :)<p>> <i>"Worst of all, PIH is probably not trying to make the world a better place through technology."</i><p>Don't worry, PIH, Startup Guy isn't either.<p>There are really two main camps of startup founders I've met. There's the type that really wants to bring a vision to life - they have a pseudo-religious fervor about something, whether it's gaming, transportation, lodging, or something else. They really want to change the world, and it's not just talk.<p>Then there are ones that are really in it to make money. They want to create a company, exit, and go do what they really want to do. Sit on a beach, roll up to the club in a Rolls Royce, travel, whatever.<p>It's a sliding scale. Every founder has some balance of being genuinely passionate about <i>what</i> their company does, and the desire to just cash out. All said and done though, the founders I meet tend to lean much further towards the latter than the former.
What a crock. I get that some of this may be tongue in cheek but I really despise this attitude. There's this sort of weird pseudo-religious belief that by virtue of being involved in a startup you're somehow doing the world some great good.<p>Your new social/local/mobile app isn't world changing no matter what kind of hustler you are, no matter how much hype you put out, no matter how much money you raise. Anyone can be a capitalist for good or bad whether its exploiting a niche market segment on your own or with a startup.<p>I believe that regardless of whether you're on your own or do a startup, if your motivation is purely financial you can still do the world great good. Similarly, do-gooders with a grand vision can harm the world. Your stupid little messaging app can connect people from around the world and change the way people communicate (throw in some good crypto and you've done even more good for private comms) or your energy startup that's supposed to change the way we fuel our vehicles and provide clean cheap energy forever can end up doing great harm to the environment or put millions out of jobs as a side effect. These are obviously very hypothetical examples but the point is that there's no "motivation + execution = ethical/unethical success" formula.<p>There's way too many shades of gray to even be able to consider generalizing like this post does.
Ok, I'll speak up as a "PIH". There are a lot of ideas that help people that will never touch VC money or can support a company with all of its overhead. It's not out of laziness. It's how a great programmer should look at all problems -- what here is redundant, manual and gets the most bang for the dev time and CPU cycles?<p>When you're a team of 1, your I/O bandwidth is almost infinite. If it's all in your brain, you don't have to explain anything, write anything down, have meetings, draw on whiteboards, etc. Your available time to work collapses down to solving specific business problems with every line of code or web page update. Imagine a case where you never have to compromise, argue, make brain dead concessions or spend resources on proving your position. Assuming you are right, and have a good head for business, marketing and writing half-way decent code, you can solve a small problem every efficiently. There are a lot of $20k-200k problems out there to solve that are not worth it for a company of any size to even touch.
Does Passive Income Hacker actually exist, or is this conversation a fantasy?<p>How many people are there making five figures ($10,000+) in profit a month with their SaaS product? Working by themselves, for only "20 minutes a day", with a full day of product development "every few weeks"?
What <i>is</i> a passive income hacker. All I really understand is someone reading the 4-hour work week, and then writing a fifty-dollar pdf on how to feed blue canaries a vegetarian diet with really long sales letters.<p>I would quite like five figures a month working from starbucks, so if I am missing a trick let me know
Can anyone identify a few example passive income apps that a single developer has managed to support? I know of bingo card creator, but what are some others?
<i>No, the business is bootstrapped.</i><p>Bootstrapping is not a crime.<p><i>So you just work out of coffee shops and stuff?</i><p>Dumping the office or co-working space saves at least a few thousand dollars per year in rent, and potentially transportation costs and commuting time as well.<p><i>He's not funded or seeking funding, he doesn't go to the networking events and hasn't been through an accelerator.</i><p>I don't care for these things either. They tend to be time sucks and overly focused on investors.<p>Look, I am skeptical of those Tim Ferris apostles whose "passive income" businesses are based on spammy blogs, apps, and affiliate sites. But don't sleight startup businesses because their methods of operation don't fit your definition of a startup.
1. The "unethical or lazy" is what the counterparty says to feel better about their own lives when they're failing. It's human nature to want to believe you're pursuing the best path.<p>2. I don't understand why people like to draw such a hard distinction. It doesn't upset me that some people prefer sushi to steak. People are entitled to their own lifestyle choices without judgment of those who make alternate choices. This isn't just a software/business/career choice issue. Paleo people love telling everyone else that their diet is the best. Many vegetarians often evangelize to others and imply there are serious moral imperatives at stake. Just because someone isn't doing what you're doing doesn't make them "lazy" or "unethical". On a side note -- I think "pursuing narrow arbitrage opportunities" is often something someone would say with disdain, but that's my flavor.<p>3. Most startup people aren't particularly making the world a better place anyways.<p>I'm sure a lot of that is written tongue in cheek, I loved it until the "narrow arbitrage opportunities" and "lazy/unethical" ending.
"But what about dev, marketing, customer service etc?"<p>"I've automated 95% of the non-dev. The other 5% of non-dev I deal with in about 20 minutes a day. Every few weeks I'll have a big dev day."<p>Any books/resources with <i>a lot</i> of real world case studies? I'd be very interested to hear many different accounts of such businesses. Here and there you see it on HN, but is there one that has many together?
Yay, now I have a label for what I am. A passive income hacker. I don't make a lot (maybe $3K / month), but I work only ~half hour a day on my main money spinner, answering support emails. (Plus, maybe a few months solid every year or so on updating the tech.) I designed it so it doesn't have a DB or user account system, to reduce the complexity and make it easier to scale by one person with only certain skills. Users regularly ask for an account system. I don't add it; I have competitors who do have an account system, and there's no way I could compete with them by myself. A certain subset of users appreciate the simplicity of my service.<p>When users email me support questions, they get a personal response from the guy who made the thing. They probably don't realise either, since most contacts start with "hey X team" or "hey X guys".<p>Having said that, I <i>do</i> work a full day, on attempting to start other passive incomes, and on more fun things that have less chance of earning. So I'm not quite living a pure passive income dream yet.
Of all income sources, I have to say the passive sort is the most desirable and scalable. You can have as many meaningful hobbies as you want if your bills are paid, unrelated to your participation in commerce.<p>Sadly, risk-free investment returns have been decimated by 0% funds from the US central bank. We can only hope that we are reaping more rewards through active business as a result, but Fed policy has really punished those who have been financially prudent.
Sounds like jealousy. If you can automate the way you get money, you have 23 hrs and 40 minutes a day to do something without any profit motive for true good. Startups, business, and making money don't have to be a religion.<p>Bill Gates will do more good with the money he made than he did by creating software.
"He's basically exploiting a narrow arbitrage opportunity and is probably either unethical or lazy"<p>This sentence made me uneasy. I am not good identifying sarcasm so it might be that but... How one would jump into that conclusion without knowing any detail?<p>On the other hand, lazy is different from being not ambitious. I had several friends like that (not making 5 figures per month though)and I find that is a very legitimate way of live.
A self-running business seems cool and magical - like creating a living thing... life! But, I think, for truly passive income (meaning it runs itself), he's right that it does have to be some kind of arbitrage opportunity, that will tend to stay around. By definition, it isn't intrinsically interesting or satisfying. But, in itself, there's nothing wrong with that.<p>OTOH, I'm not saying startup guying is the only solution - just that satisfaction requires ongoing work. Once you complete your startup (for example), you have to find something else to do - another startup, create YC... something.
Why not just do what you find satisfying in the first place? It could be a startup. It could be just to make money (e.g. Warren Buffett <i>loves</i> making money). Or it might be something else.<p>Here's a twee story about a hand-to-mouth fisherman <a href="http://www.rinkworks.com/peasoup/richman.shtml" rel="nofollow">http://www.rinkworks.com/peasoup/richman.shtml</a>
Oh man...he had me until he called thousands of people, many of whom I know personally, "probably either unethical or lazy."<p>I think we can all agree that there are multiple ways to approach startups.<p>The misstep Myles makes is to assume that one approach is somehow superior to another, and then take the further step of insulting everyone who is striving for something different than what he sees as the best option.<p>We all have opinions on this topic, and it's an interesting discussion to have. But let's try to avoid dogma and judgment.<p>What's right for your unique situation isn't necessarily right for the 100,000 other people with similar ambitions, but who may be in vastly different life situations or just have different goals than you do.<p>Oh, and call me when you're 40, married with 2 kids and a mortgage, and you're coding Perl for a bank because none of your startups made you the millions that TechCrunch promised.
"He realizes that Passive Income Hacker (PIH) is not a hustler, he's not funded or seeking funding, he doesn't go to the networking events and hasn't been through an accelerator."<p>This article rubs me wrong. This paragraph really rubs me wrong. If you're good at hustling for customers, you're a hustler where it matters. Funding (non-customer funding i.e), networking events and accelerators are secondary - lots of America's biggest businesses have been built without them.<p>The "passive income guy" described in the article reminds me of the Plenty of Fish founder by the way. Most "startup guys" would probably kill to be in his position...
Unethical?? HAHAHAHA. PIH supports themselves, and their family. They aren't a drain on the system, and owes nothing.<p>Realistically, Startup Guy is pissed because his photo sharing website that allows you to apply filters isn't getting traction.
As someone whose Twitter account has been suspended as a result of using the OP's "Passive Income" hack, I wish he would spend more time thinking the project.
I think it's just such a truism these days that every company has to (often recklessly) aim for massive growth and fund that by selling off the company, that there's just a lot of cognitive dissonance when you present that that's not the only way companies can work.<p>It's not necessarily all derision, it's just the mind trying to reconcile new information with old.
I found this post mildly amusing. It is a terribly simplified and mildly offensive comparison of two sets of objectives. Neither of which are actually right.<p>Startup is a phase - not a stereotype.
Teams are not essential to either a startup or what you term a PIH. The skills needed for the challenge are. Not the number of people.
Not all startups need nor want outside investment.
Not all startups have an idea that will change the world.
Not all startups need, want or are suitable for accelerators, incubators or other similar vehicles.
Startup is neither better nor worse than a single person building something to improve their livelihood.<p>Best I can tell, the author equates a startup to what is popular in the press. Young geeks, big rounds of capital raising, buzzwords galore, huge acquisitions and all the hype that goes with it.<p>I think bunkum like this devalues the efforts of entrepreneurs everywhere and demonstrates such a closed mind in a space where openness is increasingly important.
"Worst of all, PIH is probably not trying to make the world a better place through technology. He's basically exploiting a narrow arbitrage opportunity and is probably either unethical or lazy."<p>Really, really? Regrettable<p>This looks like the kind of dreamy SG that only wants to do "good"(by his definition) and doesn't have an attainable goal.<p>Or the startup guys that want to use the latest and "greatest" so he writes version 1 with whatever.js and when he's about to launch he decided to rewrite everything in drunk_pangolin.js "because of integrity" (except that drunk_pangolin.js is still in version 0.1, has 1 part time developer and no docs)
The stereotypes are funny, and startups, by nature, will always be filled with a majority of hustlers, but it may also inadvertently lump an entire group of startup founders -past,present and future- into the "SG pile," whom I think don't belong there.<p>That being said: i think i've heard this conversation and event had it (sadly, from the SG side in my less-educated days), and I think this conversation is intended to force people to ask themselves "am I a poser or do I want money?" which is a false dichotomy.<p>I'd rather look at people who want to make money by creating value vs. people who want make money by creating perceived value.
Am I the only one who dislikes this post because of the
assumptions it makes on startup founders? Statistically most
startups are bootstrapped, this was written by someone who is arguably caught up in the silicon valley hype, you don't need to get funded for everything...Also the other guy has obviously built something called a "lifestyle business" google it if you don't know what that is, the noob startup guy is way too nooby to know what that is. Unless the hacker guy is a hacker and is doing something illegal, I don't see why the conversation should get awkward...
Huh, are there actually Startup Guys who want to "make the world a better place through technology?" I thought the basic plan was "build and maintain an amazing, indispensable service for exactly long enough to get bought out by Google/Microsoft/Yahoo/Apple, then retire to Tahiti while the new owners fire everyone and ruin the product."<p>e.g. Siri before Apple: <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/22/siri-do-engine-apple-iphone_n_2499165.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/22/siri-do-engine-appl...</a>
What's so bad about being "Passive" Income Guy? This guy is out there monetizing with his self-bootstrapped "boring" SaaS that has real customers, while Startup Guy has blown through multiple rounds of investors' money with his quixotic third-pivot "change the world idea" that still hasn't earned a single penny but is being regularly pitched at circle-jerk networking events to the other benchwarmer wantrepreneur spectators banking on some highly improbable IPO. Wait, who did you say was unethical, lazy, and not a hustler again?
I honestly cannot figure out which guy (PIH or SG) this article is "making fun of" (maybe it's both?). I've read it twice now, and it can kind of go both ways.<p>Maybe that's the point.
Counterpoint (old but relevant):<p><a href="http://blog.wilshipley.com/2011/04/success-and-farming-vs-mining.html" rel="nofollow">http://blog.wilshipley.com/2011/04/success-and-farming-vs-mi...</a><p>The article paints non-startup guys as parasites. That's so needlessly polarizing.<p>The more common definition of the Passive Income Hacker is "lifestyle business", i.e. a business where you don't seek a 10-100x exit.<p>Personally I think if all you've done or plan on doing is an app or website, calling it a startup is kind of silly.
So what if startup guy disagrees with the choices of PIH? This is another example of conflicting ideologies, and luckily, no one can do something about it. Imagine if there was a politician who didn't like the approach PIH was taking and worked to ban it because he didn't like it. This seems very farfetched, but there are examples of this happening. The ones that come to mind are the banning of sharing recourses, like AirBnB or any ride share program.
This started out so well and I was hoping it would end along the lines of "different hackers with different goals," but steered way off course to some vitriolic attack on the casual hacker lifestyle.<p>I think if anything, bootstrapping your product to success is far more respectable than taking large sums of seed funding and potentially throwing it all away when you find that your market doesn't even exist.
It was a great read, until the end where in the last sentence it was really ambiguous whether he was being sarcastic about "He's basically exploiting a narrow arbitrage opportunity and is probably either unethical or lazy."<p>Everything was so obviously tongue in cheek until that point.<p>But, the ambiguity was actually welcome because it forces the reader to wonder and in turn choose their position.<p>It's a fun read.
>Worst of all, PIH is probably not trying to make the world a better place through technology. He's basically exploiting a narrow arbitrage opportunity and is probably either unethical or lazy.<p>Is this supposed to be what "startup guy" thinks, or is it also the opinion of the author? Seems like a pretty jarring assumption, if you ask me.
Really amazed at the number of commenters who didn't pick up on the sarcasm.<p>But, honestly, how many developers are there making five figures a month in profit passively (more or less)? That is an extreme amount of success, far beyond what most people will ever enjoy in their life.
As a former passive income hustler turned startup guy - this is so true. What's most important is to be comfortable with what you do regardless of others opinions. That's the one thing I could do without in start up land. The prosthelytizing.
This article is arrogant and pretentious. Come on, it trivializes one side while glorifying the other beyond reasonable. It seems to say that if you work on a startup you are the cool kid, and otherwise you are loser. Just like high school.
:D, Get Income invest on your own business, then get customer to make it grow. It must more satisfied then look up for investor :)<p>Btw you must see in the end, is there FBI or any kind police knock on your door :p<p>So make sure your business clean!!! Cheers
I m a developer in New York. I have a few good engineer friends I met while living in Vietnam. If any of you here happens to have a product that qualifies as a passive income product and need a tech partner let me know.
Startup-ers can be some of the most self-important people on the planet. "Passive Income Hacker" is making a living for himself and quite possibly his family as well. There's a lot of nobility in that.
I have to disagree with this post. Passive Income Hackers are usually hustlers with more street smarts than technical skills. Startup Hackers are the opposite.
as a PIH and a father, I have to chime in and mention that my lazy & unethical self gets to spend a great deal more [quality] time with the family now that I'm no longer working 24/7 at a startup. sadly, no one ever gets man of the year for being a good parent.
"Worst of all, PIH is probably not trying to make the world a better place through technology. He's basically exploiting a narrow arbitrage opportunity and is probably either unethical or lazy."<p>Is this serious? It's epically funny if it is.<p>Even if PIH is trying to make world a better place, he doesn't have to do that on his "billed" time. He has a lot of time to spare for that.
I tried doing the passive income thing. I set up dozens of blogs with adsense, amazon affiliate links and sold software.<p>What happened surprised me: it was soul-crushing. I felt dirty. Turns out that meaningful work is what fulfills me. Making "free" hands-off money doesn't excite or inspire me. Totally a learning experience.
It is apparent from the comments here that many don`t realize that the author is being sarcastic. I wonder what it is about the delivery that this fact isn't obvious enough? Because I think that there has to be something with the article if so many interpret the tone of it incorrectly.